


so many signs

by piecesofgold



Series: sweet home alaska [1]
Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: F/M, Prequel, This is not Happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:48:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29786010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofgold/pseuds/piecesofgold
Summary: Two years is nothing.
Relationships: Dimitri | Dmitry/Anya | Anastasia Romanov (Anastasia 1997 & Broadway)
Series: sweet home alaska [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1681177
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	so many signs

**Author's Note:**

> happy first birthday, [dust on every page](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22933015/chapters/54817186). thanks for being a coping mechanism when the world went topsy turvy. you’re still the best thing i’ve ever written.
> 
> to celebrate, here is Pain.
> 
> (p.s still haven’t watched sweet home alabama.)

Two years is nothing. A chasm.

Two years is Dmitry twirling his wedding ring around his finger like he’s not used to it being there. Two years is Anya hoarding colour chips to compare in every room of the house they shouldn’t be able to afford. It’s the honeymoon phase, stilted sunlight in the Alaska snow.

Two years is Dmitry’s terror every time Anya doesn’t respond when he calls, remembering blood on hospital sheets and a scar that’s never faded. Two years is the cocktail of medication Anya is prescribed for a dreamless sleep with no dead eyes and red soaked hardwood floors. They come anyway.

Two years is the ring on her finger getting heavier and heavier. Two years is the bandaid over a bullet hole peeling off. It’s the attempt at conversations they should have had, everything they won’t admit to each other that used to come easy as breathing. It’s defeated shoulders and forced light tones.

_It’s nothing. It’s nothing. It’s nothing._

* * *

In the throes of the worst nights, she doesn’t recognise him.

“It’s me!”

Her fathers face grotesque and warped, her sister's eyes glassy.

“Anya, _wake up_.”

Her brother’s body twisted and broken like a little dolls.

Fingers hold her wrists still, voice cutting through her catatonic state. “Anastasia, come back to me.”

Dmitry’s face swims into view, and Anya is suddenly too aware of the dull pain in her legs where she’s fallen out of bed.

Her brain is drenched in her family’s blood, and her husband looks terrified.

“I’m okay,” she says hoarsely, throat raw from screaming. “I’m okay.”

Dmitry doesn’t say a word, just pulls her to him until she stops crying long enough to be lifted back into bed.

* * *

 _Lucky_ is what the well-meaning woman calls her in the toiletries aisle of Meyers.

“Well, aren’t you just lucky, dear?”

_Aren’t you lucky you weren’t brutally murdered alongside your entire family._

Rooted to the spot, Anya feels Dmitry’s hand grip her elbow. “Excuse us,” he tells the woman tightly, who frowns at him as if _he’s_ offended her.

Anya can’t speak, and she’s not sure if it’s because of a stranger approaching her in a store to strike up a conversation about how _lucky_ she is to be alive, or from Dmitry cupping her face and asking if she’s okay.

That’s the moment she’ll remember. Not the woman. It’s standing in Meyers aisle and realising he’s not her husband anymore - he’s her caretaker.

It’s the sickening realisation that in trying to desperately hold on to what she has, she’s caused utter devastation on their lives.

The college thing should have been it. Him deferring because he wouldn’t leave her side for a moment. It’d been so early on, and he had his workshop and boats that it got lost in the numb haze of those awful months.

“Are you okay?”

Anya stares at him, forcing a smile as she touches the back of his hand on her cheek.

“It’s fine,” she lies.

* * *

The worst part is they don’t fight. They’ve hardly ever fought in twelve years, but this is different.

It’s a thousand paper cuts every day.

Part of Anya wants to resent him, an irrational part who envies his ability to read her so easily, because he _knows_. Because he went through this, too. Perhaps not the violence of it, but the loss.

Grief has made a home in both of them far too early.

“Marfa wants to do dinner.”

Anya blinks, elbows resting on the countertop. “When?”

Dishes clatter in Dmitry’s hands. “Tomorrow.” He doesn’t give her enough time to mask the look on her face when he looks up. “I’ll tell her no.”

“You don’t -“

He waves her off. “It’s fine. Been wanting to try that recipe Lily sent last week, anyway.”

She wants to scream. Wants to get some sort of reaction from him that isn’t passive acceptance for her. Wants him to do _something_.

 _Leave_ , she silently begs. _Get out of this while you still can_.

Anya taps her fingernails on ceramic. “Okay.”

* * *

Sawdust and lemongrass feel like they’ve been Dmitry’s indicators all her life, soothing her in moments it feels impossible to do so.

She never wanted to dread it, never wanted to tense under his touches or feel suffocated being in the same room as him. But two years of playing house has scarred her in ways she never thought it would.

He’s not a bad person. _She’s_ not a bad person - she tells herself that again and again as the bubble of blissful protection she’s built around herself threatens to burst.

They’re past the point of talking about it. He won’t leave or push back no matter how much she wants him to, keeps playing along with this ridiculous little game she didn’t mean to create.

She _didn’t_. It was the black hole of fear that opened up in her chest the night her family died, and his hand was the only lifeline.

Her extended family have never tried to hide how disappointed they are by such a rash decision.

“Why did you say yes?”

Dmitry stops pulling his bed shirt on, looking over at her. “What?”

Anya picks at her nail. “When I asked you to marry me,” she says carefully, “why did you say yes?”

Penny in the air.

_Because she needed it. Because he wasn’t thinking. Because he’s put her above too much their whole lives. Because he lost them, too, and the abyss of grief was drowning them._

“Because I love you.”

In another world, that would be enough. In another world, maybe they could repair this fractured version of love.

* * *

Two years is a long time. Two years is nothing.

Two years is Anya’s hands shaking as she grips her passport, Lily’s voice getting more and more frantic as she packs the last of her things she left in the attic a million years ago. Two years is the sadness in Vlad’s eyes, like he saw this coming on their wedding day.

Two years is Sophie picking her up at the airport and saying nothing, offering open arms and a place to stay while Anya _gets herself together._

Two years is Anya not even leaving a note.

Two years is Dmitry waking up alone, to a wedding ring on her side of the bed.

**Author's Note:**

> this got DARK i’m so sorry.


End file.
